Show Notes
2 Samuel 24
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word to us and we do ask that you would speak to us by your word and spirit that we might continue to know the blessedness that belongs to us who have been forgiven in Jesus Christ.
[00:00:19] Lord, thank you for clearing and covering our sins. Thank you for turning away your wrath through the sacrifice Jesus, and thank you for providing us a king who could represent us and lead us into glory.
[00:00:35] Lord, we praise you in Jesus name and ask that you would help us to hear and to apply your word today. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:00:45] Please be seated.
[00:00:53] Well, let's turn in God's word to 2 Samuel 24.
[00:01:27] I'm a little bit sad to be reading this last chapter.
[00:01:30] I have really enjoyed going through first Samuel and second Samuel with you. I'm not sure exactly how long it's been, but it's been. It's been joyful.
[00:01:45] My hope and prayer in preaching through these books is that coming to the end of it we would have as individuals, but collectively as a church, that we would have a clearer understanding of the Kingdom of God and of our King Jesus.
[00:02:07] I would hope and encourage you maybe over the next week or two to read back through these two books, first and second Samuel, and remind yourself of all the things that we've heard along the way. I know not everybody has been here for that whole time, and that's fine.
[00:02:31] You'll find things that you had forgotten, come across things that will connect and solidify in new ways for you as a helpful overview and review.
[00:02:45] Again, not just of things to know Bible facts to remember, but to understand who you are in Christ, to understand what he's done in our lives. As these books point us forward to David's greater Son and the promises fulfilled in Jesus.
[00:03:10] So two Samuel 24 last chapter of these books. These two books, let's hear God's Word again. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he incited David against them, saying, go number Israel and Judah.
[00:03:32] So the King said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him, go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.
[00:03:43] But Joab said to the king, may the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my Lord the King still see it.
[00:03:53] But why does my Lord the King delight in this thing?
[00:03:57] But the King's word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel.
[00:04:07] They crossed the Jordan and began from Aroer and from the city that is in the middle of the valley toward Gad and onto Jazer.
[00:04:16] Then they came to Gilead and to Kadesh in the land of the Hittites, and they came to Dan. And from Dan they went around to Sidon and came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites. And they went out to the Negeb of Judah at Beersheba.
[00:04:31] So when they had gone throughout all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and 20 days.
[00:04:38] And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king in Israel. There were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000.
[00:04:50] But David's heart struck him after he numbered the people.
[00:04:54] And David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done.
[00:04:59] But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.
[00:05:05] And when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, go and say to David.
[00:05:12] Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you chapter. Choose one of them that I may do it to you.
[00:05:18] So Gad came to David and told him and said to him, shall three years of famine come to you in your land?
[00:05:25] Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days pestilence in your land?
[00:05:34] Now consider and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.
[00:05:39] Then David said to Gad, I am in great distress, and let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great. But let me not fall into the hand of man.
[00:05:50] So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and there died of the people from dan to Beersheba, 70,000 men.
[00:06:01] And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, it is enough now stay your hand.
[00:06:14] And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of the of Araunah the Jebusite.
[00:06:21] Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these your sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand Be against me and against my father's house.
[00:06:37] And Gad came that day to David and said to him, go up, rise and altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite.
[00:06:46] So David went up at Gad's word, as the Lord commanded. And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Arauna went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground.
[00:07:00] And Arauna said, why has my lord the king come to his servant?
[00:07:06] David said, to buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be averted from the people.
[00:07:13] The Araunah said to David, let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges, and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. All this, O King Oruana gives to the king.
[00:07:30] And Arauna said to the king, may the Lord your God accept you.
[00:07:34] But the king said to Araunah, no, I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God, that cost me nothing.
[00:07:45] So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 shekels of silver. And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord responded to the plea for the land and the plague was averted from Israel.
[00:08:09] We often think that our lives are our own.
[00:08:15] We may acknowledge God.
[00:08:19] We might recognize or even believe in some deep way that God exists, that he rules, that he is sovereign.
[00:08:28] But practically and on a day to day basis, we often think of ourselves as very much in control of things.
[00:08:36] We're the ones at the steering wheel. We're the ones making the decisions. We're the ones that move our lives. And we move them according to our wants, our fears, our desires.
[00:08:50] And that's really the control center of what we do.
[00:08:56] Sometimes this even extends out not only to our little world, but even to those around us.
[00:09:03] We think about ourselves as the center. And we get frustrated when other people have other desires, when they cross our paths and they want things that are different from us and they get in our way and they frustrate us and. And these kinds of things.
[00:09:22] Sometimes this happens in really extreme ways where we use other people and use them for our own benefit in sinful ways.
[00:09:34] Well, a lot of what first and Second Samuel are about is about undoing that idea, about helping us to understand that we are not our own, that we belong to God.
[00:09:49] And that's true of our own lives. And it's true even those who are over us and we do not. We are not owned by anyone in the way that God owns us, in the way that God commands us and leads us and is our ultimate king.
[00:10:07] And that's true even of the kingdom of Israel.
[00:10:11] At the very beginning of all of this, in first Samuel, Israel wanted a king, and they wanted a king to do what they wanted to do and be like the nations. And this was, in a way, displacing God.
[00:10:23] It made God upset, it made Samuel upset. And they kind of got what they wanted in Saul, which ended in disaster.
[00:10:31] But God said, I will choose my king.
[00:10:35] The principle running through all of this and the foundation under all of it, is God saying to his people, I will be your God and you will be my people.
[00:10:44] Not I'll do my God thing over here, and then you guys can come to me when it's useful to you.
[00:10:49] He wants this relationship, this deep relationship with his people, one that is marked not just by affection and closeness, but holiness and unity, love, communion between him and his people and one another.
[00:11:09] I will be your God, and you will be my people. And yet his people, like us, are always saying, well, I'm going to go do my own thing.
[00:11:17] Saul did that and lost his kingship as a result, because the king who is over his, over the people of God, is under God.
[00:11:29] David was given this kingship, and at various times throughout his kingship, he forgot this.
[00:11:35] He forgot that he was not ultimately in charge, that he couldn't just do what he wanted when he wanted. Although he was the king of Israel, this chosen king of God, he was still under the authority of Yahweh, under the authority of his Lord.
[00:11:56] And that happens here in 2nd Samuel 24.
[00:11:59] At the end of this book, David is reminded one more time.
[00:12:04] God is the king, and you are my servant, and these are my people, not your people.
[00:12:12] And that reminder comes, we'll see, in a very particular way, and ends in a sacrifice in which God provides a way for David's sin to be forgiven, for the judgment to be removed from the people who are always wanting to go their own way and ultimately to bring peace and reconciliation in the end between God and man. That's what we have here in our chapter.
[00:12:40] Well, how does that play out? What are the details there? Let's consider what happens. There's a few things that might be a little confusing on the surface that I Think we can clear up.
[00:12:51] First of all, we begin at the beginning, the first verse.
[00:12:55] An anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
[00:12:59] So although we're going to see later that he's mad at David because David is sinning, it starts with him being upset at Israel. Sort of a story within a story, right? The things that happen with David happen because of this bigger thing that's happening with Israel.
[00:13:13] Now, the text doesn't say exactly why the Lord is upset.
[00:13:17] Probably the most likely answer is this is coming off of the heels of the two different rebellions that had just happened in which people tried to replace David, one his son, the other Sheba. These insurrections in which the people of God said, we don't want David the chosen servant. We want to go after Ish, Bosheth and others.
[00:13:40] This rejection of God or rejection of the King David was a rejection of God, a rejection of his plan, as we saw when we went through those chapters.
[00:13:51] And so God moves, and what does he do because of his anger against Israel and their disobedience, he incites their King David against them.
[00:14:07] Now, incite here doesn't mean that God authored David's sin or caused him to sin, but he moved him to a particular action. And that action is go number Israel and Judah.
[00:14:23] Now, there's no sin in this is maybe a point of confusion. There's no sin in numbering people.
[00:14:30] God commands Moses to do it. There are other censuses that happen throughout the Bible that are no problem. They're commanded by God. They're even a good thing.
[00:14:40] So if the census is not the sin itself, what is the sin?
[00:14:46] And commentators disagree on this in various ways. But I think there's clues in the text that help us to understand what's happening. Two things in particular.
[00:14:57] The first thing is that there's a rule in Exodus 30 about censuses. And it's very clear. When a census is conducted, every person pays a half shekel, a tax. It's called an atonement tax or a ransom tax. And they pay this. And it doesn't matter whether you're super rich or super poor, everyone pays the same amount. It's almost like the Lord is saying the value of each and every individual, he equalizes it in a way. He calls them all to pay this half shekel tax. And it goes to the Lord.
[00:15:37] This is different than a lot of other censuses. Cency, I don't know what the plural of that is.
[00:15:43] We'll say censuses for now, a lot of S's.
[00:15:46] But when these are Conducted. Typically, they are conducted for one of two taxes from the government or military service.
[00:16:00] They want to know how strong are we or how much money can we get.
[00:16:06] Right. The census tax, the atonement tax, this ransom tax that's commanded in Exodus 30 diverts all of that potential money to the Lord, and it goes to the priests in particular, not to the king.
[00:16:25] So as you scan through 2nd Samuel 24, you point to the verse where the census tax is.
[00:16:34] It's not there, right?
[00:16:36] No tax, no obedience, no commandment. David goes, and he counts the men and there's no payment.
[00:16:49] That's an argument from silence.
[00:16:52] True. It's possible it could have been conducted and it's just not recorded. But we're looking, right, because it explicitly tells us that David sinned. David knows this. He confesses it. There's judgment against him. That's all clear.
[00:17:05] So where is the text pointing us? Right.
[00:17:08] This is one very strong reason.
[00:17:13] So if that's what's missing, what is there? Well, I said there's generally two reasons to take a tax or take a census. One is for taxes. The other is for military purposes. Are there any military purposes in this chapter?
[00:17:30] Lots. We see it leaning very strongly that way, and that seems to be what David's desire is here.
[00:17:37] David is counting the people, not just to give praise to God as Joab. Interestingly, Joab. Joab says this amazing thing in verse three. May the Lord God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are today, while the eyes of my Lord the king will still see it.
[00:17:57] Job saying, having a lot of people is great. And indeed it is. I mean, this was part of the promise all the way back to Abraham that the people would be as many as the stars in the heavens and the sand on the sea. God has fulfilled that promise and he keeps increasing it. The increase of God's people is a mark of the blessing of God.
[00:18:18] And so Joab builds on that and recognizes this is great.
[00:18:24] Let's hope that this keeps happening. I hope, David, that you even are the one that are blessed to see this happen. But don't do this thing.
[00:18:34] Well, what's the thing?
[00:18:36] It's not the number of the people or even seeing that that Joab is concerned about. It's that he, as the commander of these armies, as a military exercise, is going to number the people.
[00:18:49] It didn't have to be Joab. It could have been any other number of people or systems or institutions that could have conducted this census. But it's not. It's Joab.
[00:19:00] And the commander of the army.
[00:19:04] So Joab protests, David doesn't listen. And then in verse four, we are told that the commanders of the army, Joab and the commanders of the army, they go out.
[00:19:16] So the army heads out to do army stuff, right? They go out to exercise and to figure out what the size of the people are. And then we know. We see all this confirmed in verse nine. When the numbering of the people comes, we don't hear.
[00:19:33] Well, we hear. I'll put it positively. We hear a military number in Israel. There were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were 500,000.
[00:19:44] Okay, we can see what's going on here.
[00:19:48] David is told to take a census, but he takes the census in a way that is focused on his, perhaps his insecurities, his desire for power, his fear over his enemies. He doesn't need to.
[00:20:05] David's strength is not dependent on the number of people that he has.
[00:20:11] Now, David can bless the Lord, David can praise the Lord for the number of people he has. Indeed, to be fruitful and multiply and see, this blessing in the kingdom of God is a good thing, but that's not where the power is.
[00:20:25] Of course, David had examples in his own life of this as a young boy going out and defeating Goliath, right various times throughout Israel's history, where God scales back the armies of Israel. The Lord of hosts that we heard of, he scales back his armies, he scales back his people and proves how he can win.
[00:20:48] Remember Jonathan and his armor bearer with only one sword in all Israel, defeating a Philistine of garrisons. So many examples throughout these books. But David loses sight of this and says, I need to make sure things are safe.
[00:21:04] I need to make sure that I'm going to be okay.
[00:21:08] Perhaps he's recruiting. Perhaps he's recruiting after these recent insurrections and he's feeling scared.
[00:21:17] So David conducts a census, but he does it not for the right reasons.
[00:21:22] He does it in a way in which he's thinking of the people not as God's, but as his own to use for his power, to hold on for his reasons.
[00:21:36] Now, have you ever sinned? And then it kind of took a while for conviction to set in.
[00:21:47] We're told that the census took nine months and 20 days.
[00:21:52] And then in verse 10, it says, But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people.
[00:21:58] David went on this quest for independence from the Lord to doing his own thing, to ruling people in his own way, to grasping and holding on to power when it was freely given to him from God.
[00:22:13] It puts him on the wrong side of God. But he wakes up. After about 10 months, he wakes up, his heart strikes him, and he says to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done.
[00:22:26] One good note, just encouraging thing. Notice that it doesn't take the prophet Gad coming to him first like it did with Nathan with Bathsheba. David recognizes it, he senses it. He says it. He doesn't wait. He doesn't hold onto it. He says it. He says he sinned greatly in what he does, and he asks for forgiveness. This is exactly what we do, beloved. When we sin, we ask for forgiveness. We confess our sins. We confess them and we seek the Lord.
[00:22:58] Well, the Lord says that he is going to punish the people. And he gives David three options. David chooses this, chooses this seems to be the third. But anyway, he says, lord, it is your choice.
[00:23:13] We will submit to what you will do. And. And the Lord does in verse 15 exactly what he promised he would do in Exodus 30. He said, if you don't take this tax, if you don't do this thing, I will send a plague on you. If you take the census without the tax, pestilence and plague will come. And that's what happens.
[00:23:33] It comes.
[00:23:34] And God, in the way that he often does, he sends one of his mighty angels to exercise this judgment. A reminder here of the might of the creatures that are the angels.
[00:23:49] One angel acting here, destroying 70,000 men from Dan to Beersheba. And this is an angel of the Lord.
[00:24:00] As mighty as this creature is, as mighty as this angel is under the authority of God. The Lord has hundred million of them at his beck and call.
[00:24:13] Thousands upon thousands. The Scriptures tell us that he is in command of. This is an image. We'll think a lot when we, Lord willing, get to Revelation and think about the Lord's work through his angels in judgment.
[00:24:32] This angel stretches out his hand about to destroy a people in Jerusalem. And the Lord turns from this calamity, stops the angel and says, it is enough. And of course, this angel immediately stops judgment, comes right up to the point of this particular place, this threshing floor.
[00:24:53] And it's there that God provides a solution.
[00:24:58] And what is the solution?
[00:25:01] It's sacrifice.
[00:25:04] Go, he says in verse 18, rise up and altar to the Lord on the threshing floor.
[00:25:09] And David goes, and this man says, this is odd. Usually you're summoned to the king, and all of a sudden I see the king coming to me.
[00:25:17] He sees this. And David tells him he wants to buy the threshing floor from him.
[00:25:23] This man offers his fire, here, have the ox half of the wood. And David says, no, I'm going to buy it. The principle here is very important. Verse 24. I will buy it from you for a price. Price. I will not offer burnt offerings to. Excuse me, to my Lord, that cost me nothing.
[00:25:42] So he buys it. Verse 25. He builds an altar, offers burnt offerings there, which is a sacrificial offering for the sin, and a peace offering, which is a kind of communion and fellowship offering.
[00:25:58] And the Lord responds to this repentance, to the sacrifice, to the plea for the land. And the plague was averted from Israel.
[00:26:07] So in all this we see a simple story of the king and God's people trying to live in their own independent way, taking sinful shortcuts and doing their own things to get their own, to have their own safety and their pleasure, forgetting that the Lord is over them and the Lord has promised them everything. The Lord will give them fruitfulness. The Lord will give them protection from enemies. They only need to follow him, but they won't and they don't stop.
[00:26:45] And what happens at the end here will keep happening over and over and over again. The Lord will come to his people against them in judgment, but will relent from it through sacrifice.
[00:26:58] One of the really amazing things here is that this place where David builds this altar isn't just the place where David offers burnt offerings and peace offerings for fellowship with the Lord, but this becomes the place where the temple will be built.
[00:27:13] It's sort of anticipating in a way, and you pick this up later in other portions of Scripture. It's anticipating this next stage that is going to happen.
[00:27:23] Remember, this brings us all the way back to the covenant that God made with David. David said, I want to build a house for you. And God said, no, I will build your house.
[00:27:33] I will make you. And this is the context in which God made his covenant to David and promised one who would come to sit on the throne and rule forever, who would create peace between God and man.
[00:27:50] This grasping that we see here, grasping for independence, for power, for safety, these kinds of things, and not trusting the Lord.
[00:27:59] This goes often deeper than we think.
[00:28:04] When we think about our own lives, we think, well, I'm not. I'm not doing that. I'm just managing my life.
[00:28:11] I'm just being responsible.
[00:28:14] I'm just making my own decisions. But there's this way in which this can slip in, in which our motives start to slip, in which we start forgetting the Lord we start deciding, well, if I just do this, it'll be easier if I just commit that sin, I'll get this faster.
[00:28:35] We start coveting things.
[00:28:37] We start being worried that if we don't have a certain amount of money or a certain amount of children or a certain amount of relationships or living in a certain place or whatever it is we decide for our lives.
[00:28:49] We start worrying and we think, well, maybe I better just do this thing.
[00:28:54] I know it's really not what I'm supposed to do, but.
[00:28:57] And maybe it's not even the thing that we do, but it's the motives in which we do it, the distance we do it from the Lord, the lack of trust, the lack of.
[00:29:07] The lack of faith in him.
[00:29:10] We get possessive.
[00:29:12] We get greedy.
[00:29:15] Sometimes we do really terrible things. In those greed, those greedy moments, like David did in murdering and adultery.
[00:29:25] We go our own way.
[00:29:28] And it ends always in alienation from God and each other.
[00:29:34] Always ends in guilt, always ends in shame, always ends in more and more fear.
[00:29:43] How do we get out of these kinds of things?
[00:29:45] The only way out is for the King of Glory to rush in and to save us, to hold back his hand from judgment and provide a way of escape, to provide an opportunity for salvation. And that's what he does for us. That's what he does for David. Here. And this is the principle on which the kingdom of. Of God will be founded, a principle in which the sacrifice of the Lord is what saves us.
[00:30:15] And that's what Jesus did in the fulfillment of these promises to David, the king. This prince would come, a prince who would be a greater king than the King David.
[00:30:28] And he would come and he would not grasp.
[00:30:31] Philippians tells us that he did not grasp at equality with God, but instead he laid down his life as a servant. Obedient, obedient, obedient, righteous, righteous, righteous, holy, holy, holy even to the point of death.
[00:30:49] Jesus obediently went to the cross and became that sacrifice.
[00:30:56] He lays down his life and he sheds his blood to create a house, to create a temple, to create a people of God where man and God can dwell forever.
[00:31:12] He as God, as the King of glory is that sacrifice ascends that hill and he takes all of us with him.
[00:31:24] Hallelujah.
[00:31:27] Satan offered all of this to Jesus.
[00:31:31] Matthew 11. The kingdoms of the world, the glory. And Jesus didn't take it. He didn't take that sinful shortcut. Instead, he chose the road of obedience. And praise God, he did.
[00:31:45] Because he did. We are saved.
[00:31:49] This sacrifice that Jesus gave, the sacrifice that God gives on behalf of his people, which cost him not 50 shekels of silver, but the life of his own son.
[00:32:06] This sacrifice is what saves us and establishes the kingdom of God.
[00:32:13] Not temporarily or for a few more months until the King messes up again, but forever.
[00:32:20] Which is why we're not waiting for another king. It's why we're not waiting for another kingdom. That's why we're not hoping for yet another epic or another covenant. Jesus has come, the Alpha and Omega, to finish everything, to bring all things to their destined purposes.
[00:32:38] And so when we sense ourselves grasping and coveting, when we sense and see ourselves committing sins that are shameful and despicable, hurtful and destructive, we must flee to the Lord.
[00:32:57] While he is withholding judgment and offering to us sacrifice of Jesus, we must flee to him, the Lord of glory, the King of glory.
[00:33:09] And when we do, he promises to us that the plague will be averted. He promises to us that judgment will be averted.
[00:33:19] Not just the little things in this life, but death and hell itself.
[00:33:24] That everlasting shame and contempt, that these will all be removed from us and we will enter into everlasting life in his kingdom and under his King.
[00:33:37] The Lord is faithful. The Lord is doing this and will surely bring these things to completion.
[00:33:45] So be a citizen of his kingdom, rejoice in it, celebrate it, enjoy it, breathe it in and praise God and the king who reigns over you, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of David. Let's pray.
[00:34:01] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the mighty power of his kingship.
[00:34:10] We ask that you would help us to rest in him and that you would conquer our hearts, our willful, sinful hearts, which constantly go astray, rule over us and guard us and keep us in your grace. By your mighty hand and your outstretched arm. We ask that you would conquer the sinfulness that is in us.
[00:34:31] That you would cast a Satan, all those who would follow him into the lake of fire.
[00:34:40] We ask that you would defeat all of your enemies and that you would rule over us forever and that we would have peace.
[00:34:53] Lord, help us to see the bigger picture, to understand what you are doing and to put on the armor of God as we fight the fight of faith.
[00:35:04] A fight which is not fought in our own power and strength, but in yours, in righteousness and holiness, in trusting you for everything that we need.
[00:35:19] Lord, we thank you for our Savior and we put all our faith in him. May the Lord and King Jesus be exalted in heaven and on earth.
[00:35:27] We pray all these things in his name, Amen.
